Open Your 'SkInfrared' Eyes in Old Pasadena

Written by Linda VuSpitzer Science Center

View the world through heat-sensitive infrared eyes at SkInfrared, a free art exhibit presented by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope science center at the One Colorado Courtyard in Old Pasadena, Calif. -- from October 10 to 31, 2007. This exhibit is held in conjunction with Pasadena's Skin/Art & Ideas 2007 festival.

Humans see the world in visible light, and feel infrared light as heat. We often classify ourselves by what our eyes see, but what if we all had infrared eyes? What would our skin look like? SkInfrared will introduce you this infrared world with spectacular visible-light and infrared imagery of both people and cosmic objects, such as turbulent stellar nurseries and swirling galaxies.

Photographs will be presented as hanging installations and in a slideshow format. Watch shadows disappear and facial features change as we move across the electromagnetic spectrum, from visible to infrared light.

Free live demonstrations with an infrared camera will be available on Fridays and Saturdays from 7 to 10 p.m. PT, in the One Colorado Courtyard during the festival.

The One Colorado Courtyard is located between Fair Oaks Avenue and Colorado Boulevard, and DeLacey Avenue and Union Street in Old Pasadena.

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope launched from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Base on August 25, 2003, and is currently following Earth around the Sun. Spitzer's heat-sensitive infrared "eyes" can see stars forming deep inside cosmic clouds of dust, detect objects lurking in the darkest corners of space, and witness events at the edge of the known universe.

Art & Ideas, a collaboration of Pasadena-area arts, science, and cultural organizations, engages the Southern California community by creating provocative issue-based arts festivals. For 2007, the festival partners have chosen the theme "Skin." The goal is to have the theme ignite a broad discourse, and provide multiple perspectives that are both innovative and timely, as well as artistically and intellectually resonant to a diverse audience and a changing world.

The Spitzer Space Telescope is a NASA mission managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This website is maintained by the Spitzer Science Center, located at IPAC on the campus of the California Institute of Technology.